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Customize ICS Files for Attendees

Easily customize ICS files for Outlook and Apple calendars to include all the details your attendees need. Add key information, links, and more to foster a seamless add-to-calendar experience.

Using the classic admin? Click here to learn where you can find the ICS file settings.

Whenever someone registers for your session, series or event, they'll have an opportunity to add it to their personal calendar. The details of this calandar invite are usually populated by the details, such as the title, description, and start time of your session.

Sometimes, these details don't line up with exactly what you want to convey to your audience int heir own calendars. With the ability to customize the ICS file, you can fully customize the text and content of these calendar invites to better align with your content.

While this setting primarily focuses on ICS files for Apple and Outlook calendars, changing the title and description from the default will also affect the Google Calendar invite.

Previously, when creating an ICS file, you had two options:

  1. BigMarker creates ICS file. This was essentially hidden from the user, might have automatically generated text that won't work for the event or use-case
  2. Upload a custom ICS file. This could be a bit cumbersome because you had to have an ICS file ready, usually by using a 3rd-party website

With this new update to our ICS customizations, the process is simpler:

To customize the ICS file, go into the Emails page and click on the Customize ICS button. This will open up the same settings as described above.

Clicking on this opens a side-sheet of all the settings available to create or upload an ICS file

You can decide to use an ICS file created on BigMarker for this, or upload a new one from your computer. When updating the invite on the platform, you'll have the ability to update the title and description, the start time and duration, the notification settings, and more.

An important setting to keep in mind is the Request Type. When set to Publish, recipients need to add the event to their calendar manually. With the request type, the event is automatically added to the recipient's calendar, but they can still accept or decline the calendar invite.

This customized ICS file will now be attached in all registration notification and reminder emails, as well as available to download on the landing and confirmation pages. You can also use the token {ics-direct-link} in your emails for a direct link to download the ICS file.

Replacing calendar invites

With the ICS file editor, you have another option to replace an existing calendar invite. If users registered for one event and got a calendar invite, you can make it so a separate event's calendar invite would replace the first.

Let's say you have one session that users register for, but you have to cancel and reschedule. Users already saved the original event to their calendar, and you want the new time you schedule to replace those existing calendar invites. This setting allows you to do just that.

In the ICS editor, look for the setting Replace Calendar Event. Enable this and you will see a dropdown menu. In this menu you'll be able to search through all of the content on you channel. You can only choose one webinar or series from here. The webinar chosen determines which calendar invite will be replaced by the one being edited.

ICS Files in the classic admin

In your webinar dashboard, go to the Emails & Invitations page at the top of the screen and fine ICS File in the left-hand navigation menu.